The Hollow. Агата Кристи
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He had been in the diplomatic service for a time, but when he inherited Ainswick he had resigned and come to live on his property. He was of a bookish turn of mind, collected first editions, and occasionally wrote rather hesitating ironical little articles for obscure reviews. He had asked his second cousin, Henrietta Savernake, three times to marry him.
Midge sat in the autumn sunshine thinking of these things. She could not make up her mind whether she was glad she was going to see Edward or not. It was not as though she were what is called ‘getting over it’. One simply did not get over any one like Edward. Edward of Ainswick was just as real to her as Edward rising to greet her from a restaurant table in London. She had loved Edward ever since she could remember…
Sir Henry’s voice recalled her.
‘How do you think Lucy is looking?’
‘Very well. She’s just the same as ever.’ Midge smiled a little. ‘More so.’
‘Ye—es.’ Sir Henry drew on his pipe. He said unexpectedly:
‘Sometimes, you know, Midge, I get worried about Lucy.’
‘Worried?’ Midge looked at him in surprise. ‘Why?’
Sir Henry shook his head.
‘Lucy,’ he said, ‘doesn’t realize that there are things that she can’t do.’
Midge stared. He went on:
‘She gets away with things. She always has.’ He smiled. ‘She’s flouted the traditions of Government House—she’s played merry hell with precedence at dinner parties (and that, Midge, is a black crime!). She’s put deadly enemies next to each other at the dinner table, and run riot over the colour question! And instead of raising one big almighty row and setting everyone at loggerheads and bringing disgrace on the British Raj—I’m damned if she hasn’t got away with it! That trick of hers—smiling at people and looking as though she couldn’t help it! Servants are the same—she gives them any amount of trouble and they adore her.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Midge thoughtfully. ‘Things that you wouldn’t stand from anyone else, you feel are all right if Lucy does them. What is it, I wonder? Charm? Magnetism?’
Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders.
‘She’s always been the same from a girl—only sometimes I feel it’s growing on her. I mean that she doesn’t realize that there are limits. Why, I really believe, Midge,’ he said, amused, ‘that Lucy would feel she could get away with murder!’
Henrietta got the Delage out from the garage in the Mews and, after a wholly technical conversation with her friend Albert, who looked after the Delage’s health, she started off.
‘Running a treat, miss,’ said Albert.
Henrietta smiled. She shot away down the Mews, savouring the unfailing pleasure she always felt when setting off in the car alone. She much preferred to be alone when driving. In that way she could realize to the full the intimate personal enjoyment that driving a car brought to her.
She enjoyed her own skill in traffic, she enjoyed nosing out new short-cuts out of London. She had routes of her own and when driving in London itself had as intimate a knowledge of its streets as any taxi-driver.
She took now her own newly discovered way southwest, turning and twisting through intricate mazes of suburban streets.
When she came finally to the long ridge of Shovel Down it was half-past twelve. Henrietta had always loved the view from that particular place. She paused now just at the point where the road began to descend. All around and below her were trees, trees whose leaves were turning from gold to brown. It was a world incredibly golden and splendid in the strong autumn sunlight.
Henrietta thought, ‘I love autumn. It’s so much richer than spring.’
And suddenly one of those moments of intense happiness came to her—a sense of the loveliness of the world—of her own intense enjoyment of that world.
She thought, ‘I shall never be as happy again as I am now—never.’
She stayed there a minute, gazing out over that golden world that seemed to swim and dissolve into itself, hazy and blurred with its own beauty.
Then she came down over the crest of the hill, down through the woods, down the long steep road to The Hollow.
When Henrietta drove in, Midge was sitting on the low wall of the terrace, and waved to her cheerfully. Henrietta was pleased to see Midge, whom she liked.
Lady Angkatell came out of the house and said:
‘Oh, there you are, Henrietta. When you’ve taken your car into the stables and given it a bran mash, lunch will be ready.’
‘What a penetrating remark of Lucy’s,’ said Henrietta as she drove round the house, Midge accompanying her on the step. ‘You know, I always prided myself on having completely escaped the horsy taint of my Irish forebears. When you’ve been brought up amongst people who talk nothing but horse, you go all superior about not caring for them. And now Lucy has just shown me that I treat my car exactly like a horse. It’s quite true. I do.’
‘I know,’ said Midge. ‘Lucy is quite devastating. She told me this morning that I was to be as rude as I liked whilst I was here.’
Henrietta considered this for a moment and then nodded.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘The shop!’
‘Yes. When one has to spend every day of one’s life in a damnable little box being polite to rude women, calling them Madam, pulling frocks over their heads, smiling and swallowing their damned cheek whatever they like to say to one—well, one does want to cuss! You know, Henrietta, I always wonder why people think it’s so humiliating to go “into service” and that it’s grand and independent to be in a shop. One puts up with far more insolence in a shop than Gudgeon or Simmons or any decent domestic does.’
‘It must be foul, darling. I wish you weren’t so grand and proud and insistent on earning your own living.’
‘Anyway, Lucy’s an angel. I shall be gloriously rude to everyone this weekend.’
‘Who’s here?’ said Henrietta as she got out of the car.
‘The Christows are coming.’ Midge paused and then went on, ‘Edward’s just arrived.’
‘Edward? How nice. I haven’t seen Edward for ages. Anybody else?’
‘David Angkatell. That, according to Lucy, is where you are going to come in useful. You’re going to stop him biting his nails.’
‘It sounds very unlike me,’ said Henrietta. ‘I hate interfering with people, and I wouldn’t dream of checking their personal habits. What did Lucy really say?’
‘It amounted to that! He’s got an Adam’s apple, too!’
‘I’m not expected to do anything about that, am I?’ asked Henrietta, alarmed.
‘And you’re to be kind to Gerda.’
‘How I should hate Lucy if I were Gerda!’
‘And someone who solves crimes is coming to lunch tomorrow.’
‘We’re not going to play the Murder Game, are we?’
‘I don’t think so. I think it is just neighbourly hospitality.’
Midge’s voice changed a little.
‘Here’s Edward coming out to meet us.’
‘Dear Edward,’ thought Henrietta with a sudden rush of warm affection.
Edward Angkatell was very tall and thin. He was smiling now as he came towards the two young women.
‘Hallo, Henrietta, I haven’t seen you for over a year.’
‘Hallo,